Not Looking Forward To This

I'm still not looking forward to this party. It's not so much the remnants of the cold that bother me, it's just the party itself. I don't mix very well. It's not that I can't or don't chat or anything like that, it's just that I'm not particularly outgoing when I'm surrounded by a number of unfamiliar people. There will be some people from work but that'll mostly be the other department heads and I'm not all that fond of most of them.

Besides, it's in River Hills. For those of you unfamiliar with the Greater Milwaukee Area, River Hills is the suburb where the Rich People live. There's a pecking order to the area suburbs, in a slightly joking manner, where the people in Glendale wish they lived in Whitefish Bay, and the Whitefish Bay people wish they lived in Fox Point, etc. Top of the list for a Milwaukee suburb is always River Hills. Some people might drag Mequon into this but it's not technically a suburb of Milwaukee and is big enough to not be completely ritzy. Besides, I think there are people in Mequon that wish they were in River Hills as well.

I've met people with wealth before, mostly in situations like this party. People with money aren't that different from people without money. Some are pleasant, some aren't. Some are money hungry, some not. Some like baseball, others don't. You get the idea.

Dealing with the uncomfortability of an unfamiliar situation is one thing. It's part exciting and part nerve wracking. The pressure to impress a group of rich folks so that they'll contribute to the cause, that I don't care for at all.

On the downside, I'm not allowed to drink any alcohol while at an event where I'm representing the school. On the upside, I'm not allowed to drink any alcohol. I can't use alcohol to relax me in any way but, at the same time, I'm less likely to get overly casual.

There's an advantage and disadvantage to getting the invitation on short notice. I don't have time to overthink the situation, which is a good thing. I'm also less likely to forget the appointment. On the downside, short notice irritates me. It's a side effect of my work. People regularly come to us at the last minute, making us scramble to assist instead of being able to plan things out and doing them properly. As a result, some people grow accustomed to the idea of approaching us at the last second, because we manage to still meet their need, and others complain about my department's failure, somehow not acknowledging their own part in the process.

I look forward to it being over and done.